In the prior art, it is known to package articles in portions in a tube which is formed from a flat web of packaging material, is closed in the longitudinal direction and is then closed in the transverse direction between articles to be packaged which have been pushed into the tube. The articles packaged in this way are also known as "flow packs".
These packaging machines are employed, inter alia, in the packaging of foodstuffs, such as chocolate bars and the like. These packaging machines can be used to reach very high production rates. For example, devices which produce more than 1500 flow packs per minute are known.
In an operating process, the machines which are to carry out further operations on the flow packs are generally unable to maintain these high production rates. In practice, this means that it is necessary to take measures in order to prevent the production process from becoming blocked up. In a solution which is regularly employed, the production rate of the packaging machine is deliberately set at a lower level than the maximum production rate which can be achieved. In another solution, in the production process the stream of flow packs is divided into two or more product streams with the aid of division means. However, even these devices which are known from the prior art for dividing a feed stream of flow packs into two or more discharge streams of flow packs are unable to maintain the high production rate of the packaging machine. The cause of this lies, inter alia, in the fact that it is necessary, for the action of the known division devices, firstly to determine the position of the flow packs before they can be manipulated. This detection step wastes time, at the expense of the processing rate of these division devices.
Therefore, production capacity of the packaging machine is left unused in both solutions.